A group of people were waiting here by the side of the road, women with kids, some men, perhaps a dozen in all. One man was in a wheelchair. Mary glimpsed a WAAF uniform among the group. More passengers, evidently. Two German troopers stood with them, just kids, very bored.
The soldier riding shotgun climbed down and spoke to his counterparts outside. They argued; Mary saw that the soldiers outside had a heavy rucksack that must have contained a field radio unit. Then the shotgun rider called up to his driver, who stood and turned to face his passengers. 'Out,' he said, his English barely comprehensible. 'Off bus. Comprenez? Um, understand?'
One of the young men at the front spoke up. 'Why the bloody hell? We're supposed to be taken out of your zone altogether. By my reckoning we've come no further than Peter's Well. What's going on?'
The soldier fingered his revolver. 'Off bus. Military. Soldiers. Understand?'
Mary sighed and stood up. 'Come on, guys,' she said. 'I don't think we have a choice.'
The passengers followed her lead, and one by one clambered down to the road. The young man who had protested moved stiffly, helped by his companion. The WAAF girl hurried forward to take his other arm. 'Let me give you a hand.'
'Thank you, miss. My bloody kidneys packing up, that's what it is, you see, and I was stuck in hospital – careful, Bill. Funnily enough I used to drive a bus like this when I was a bit younger, before following my father into his accountancy firm…'
Mary stared at the WAAF, whose bright red hair, unruly, stuck out from under her cap. She couldn't believe her eyes. 'Hilda?'
Hilda's eyes widened. 'Mary? Oh, my word!' She rushed forward and they embraced. Hilda's hair was mussed, her eyes hollow, her uniform dusty and torn. 'We do keep running into each other, don't we?'
They stepped aside from the other passengers. 'Are you all right? I haven't seen you since-'
Hilda smiled, and lifted her left hand, waggling her ring finger. 'I know. Bit of a shock, wasn't it? Little did we know old Hitler was about to spring an even bigger surprise.'
'What happened to you? How do you come to be here?'
'Well, I made it to my station. I shared a ride with Ben Kamen-'
'I know, you were in my car.'
'Don't know what happened to him after that, poor chap. Or your car, actually, sorry about that! We were shutting the station down. Unfortunately we were a bit slow getting out of there before the Jerries arrived. Do move fast, these chaps.'
'So they captured you.'
'They copped the lot of us. We were all held at the base. We heard talk that we were to be shipped to some camp. But they processed us – interviewed us one by one – trying to find out about our radar, you see. And when they discovered I was married to an American – would you believe, I had my wedding certificate tucked into my gas-mask pouch, it had all been that quick – they said I wouldn't be held.'
'Really?'
'These big flat-footed Germans are being very careful about not offending America, Mary! You must have seen that. I protested, frankly. I wanted to stay with my colleagues. I'm a WAAF first, not an American's wife. But the Germans would have none of it. So here I am, on my way to Tunbridge Wells! I suppose they even arranged for you and me to be on the same transport.'
'How thoughtful,' Mary said drily.
'So what about you? How's Dad?'
Mary told her about the nights of bombing, and what had become of her following the invasion.
'Wow. King Harold! These Nazis really are crackpots, aren't they? Almost funny in a way. I bet Dad was laughing his socks off at them.'
'Maybe. But he's stuck back there now, in Hastings. He's going to have to work with them.'
'Um. Well, he's got a clear head, my dad. He always said he became a policeman so he could stop harm being done to the most vulnerable.'
'He'll have plenty of chances to do that in the coming days.'
'Yes…'
There was a rumble of vehicles coming from the south; they turned to look that way. The bus-driver soldier approached, arms outstretched, and shepherded the passengers off the tarmac. Then an argument ensued among the Germans, evidently about whether the bus was far enough off the road.
Hilda said, 'So this is why we've been turfed off the road. Speaking of the Germans and their speedy movements-'
In moments the tanks were on them, a line of them roaring past the parked-up bus. Mary and Hilda shrank back with the others. The tanks barely slowed down, and Mary had the impression that they would just have knocked the bus aside if it had been necessary. Close to, the tanks were huge, powerful, and the roar of their engines, the dust they kicked up, their sheer rushing mass made an overwhelming physical presence. When the tanks had passed, support vehicles followed, troop carriers and mobile artillery. There were no horse, no men on foot; this was a mechanised unit of the kind that had spearheaded the blitzkrieg that had shattered whole nations in Europe.
The column took minutes to pass. Mary saw Hilda counting silently as the vehicles passed, a bit of observation. The German soldiers whooped and clapped. The other passengers just watched with hostility, resignation or fear.
As the noise died away and the dust settled, Hilda whispered to Mary, 'I think I heard the soldiers say that was a unit of the Seventh Panzers. On their way to Guildford.'
'Guildford?'
'We have an inkling of their battle plan – plenty of spies in Berlin! And we were given pretty good briefings at the station; we needed them to do our job, you see. Evidently they're now moving forward. They're planning a break-out. It might take a couple of days to get their assets in place, and then-'
'Made a right mess of the road surface, mind.'The kidney-failure man was talking to the German soldiers. He was right; the tarmac was chewed up by the tank tracks. 'The council's going to have something to say about that, I can tell you. So is that that? Can we get back on the bus now?'
The German driver blocked his way. 'Nein. No. Not yet. Look!' He pointed down the road.
Mary saw that another column was approaching, at a much slower pace.
'Oh, for heaven's sake,' said the kidney man. 'We'll be stuck here all day.'
'Now, now, Giles,' his companion, Bill, said, 'don't annoy the nice Germans. We'll get to Tunbridge Wells for tea, you mark my words.'
That won a ripple of laughter. The Germans scowled, not understanding, suspicious.
Giles, the kidney man, didn't laugh either. 'I've had enough of this lot,' he muttered.
The second column, trundling at walking pace, was led by a couple of heavy vehicles, perhaps for recovery or clearing roadblocks. Then came more vehicles, mobile guns and troop carriers, and then troops on foot walking single file, in columns alternately to either side of the road. After that came trucks and armoured vehicles, including a couple of tanks, and then a string of carts and artillery pieces drawn by horses. As the lead vehicles passed the bus, the marching troops exchanged banter with the waiting bus crew. Some of them whistled at Hilda, and she replied with sarcastic curtseys that made them laugh.
Bill, the friend of Giles, came to stand before Hilda. 'I'll tell you what I've had enough of. I've had enough of girls like you.' A minute ago he had been elegantly joking. Now, out of nowhere, he was shouting.
Hilda was bewildered. 'Look, what do you want?'
'I saw you smiling at those Jerries. I was in the bloody BEF. We saw girls like you in France. A Jerrybag, are you, is that the story?'
Hilda flared. 'I most certainly am not.'
The bus-crew Germans came closer, uneasy. 'What is this?'
'You are what I say you are, you little whore!'
Mary stood between the man and Hilda. 'Now, you back off, buster. I don't know what your game is, but-'
The man swung his fist. Mary ducked, but she took a blow to the temple that sent her staggering. She could barely believe it had happened.
